I never understood this. Why does being poor prohibit you from having a state issued ID?

Er, um, it costs money they don't have?

Yep, that's the democrat's argument. The free ID's will cost the poor more money than they have.

You mean the "free ID" that requires a check or money order to obtain?

No, I mean the free ID that's free, you ignorant slut.

...and where, pray tell, do you get a free ID in Pennsylvania? According to the OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT WEBSITE THAT I LINKED TO, a Photo ID costs $13.95. And because the PA DMV doesn't take cash, you also have to pay to maintain a checking account for the checks you need to write out to get them. Last I checked, checks and money orders were not free, though some checking accounts are. And $13.95 for a photo ID is a larger fee than the last poll taxes that were abolished by the 24th amendment. Now, if you actually want to change this and make government-issued ID's ACTUALLY FREE to anyone who asked, then, sure, you can say that the argument's ridiculous. But for some people, $13.95 is more than they can afford, even only one time every four years. And it shouldn't be asked of anyone to vote.

Don't forget that it is probably illegal to take the bus naked so clothing is a poll tax or something because clothing costs money....wah wah wah boo farking hoo.

the only way i see this working is if there is an elections bureaucracy that is responsible for sending out voter ID cards to every registered voter at regular intervals.

it would be similar to the PennDOT drivers licenses except that it would have to be totally free (or else it is a poll tax). the additional labor necessary to implement this program would mean thousands of jobs for the state and would cost tens (or hundreds) of millions of tax dollars.

Leeds:PsiChick: Leeds: PsiChick: bhcompy: Fabric_Man: Judge decides illegal immigrants and dead people the poor still allowed to vote in PA

I know it's sarcasm, but still

I never understood this. Why does being poor prohibit you from having a state issued ID?

Because if you're working a dead-end job and the DMV is only open from nine to five, you can't take time off work to renew your ID. And if you've been in that situation for a long time, you probably don't have a car or an up-to-date ID, because almost anyone will take an expired ID. This problem is multiplied exponentially if you have a child or some other responsibility.

Then it's probably a good thing that they're open 6 days a week.

// Just sayin'

Ha, you're funny.

/I don't know who runs your DMV, but there ain't a sixth day out here.//And even if there were, see above--do you really think a weekend bus schedule, weekend babysitters (if you even have enough money for that), and DMV Saturday hours, if you don't have a six-day job, is reasonable? Because no, it's not.

If this theoretical person is unable to carve out an hour or two over the course of 8 months then it is clear that they would be unable to make it to the polls on election day anyway.

As a result, they are likely voting using an absentee ballot which does not require a photo ID anyway.

mr lawson:Lionel Mandrake: The argument is that it amounts to a poll tax, results in keeping eligible voters from voting, and addresses a non-existent "problem"

The way it is now it allows "INELIGIBLE" voters (illegals) to vote.

Do you believe ILLEGAL immigrants should be able to vote?

Do you believe DR. DOOM should be able to vote? Of course you don't. I'm sure you'll support my proposal, then, which would require all voters to obtain a piece of documentation that proves they are not Dr. Doom, issued from an office located inside a dormant volcano, whose hours of opening vary daily based on the Fibonacci Sequence.

ChuDogg:I'll be perfectly honest I don't think dumb and poor people should vote, I would have much more stringent conditions on voting including IQ tests, historical knowledge of US Constitutional and Common law doctrine and its development, civics, and quite possibly service in the military, Peace corps, or extensive volunteer work through College. Voting should be seen as something to be prepared for very early in the year. Like studying for the SAT, LSATS, etc. But yeah, this is a start.

Leeds:nytmare: This is how republicans actually rationalize it. Even though individual voter fraud is probably rare, and there are already procedures in place to ensure one vote per registered person making official ID cards unnecessary.

Because you are physically incapable of signing a name that's not your own, amirite?

And there is some sort of force field that bars you from entering 2 polling stations in the same day, right?

Yes, there is obviously a conspiracy that means thousands if not millions of liberals would do this. Yawn. There is no motive for one person doing this a few times. You can barely get the average person to vote once. And due to this lack of motive, we have lack of evidence of the problem that doesn't exist, therefore we have no need.

You really should get a morning-after pill for the number of times you've been raped today.

spmkk:coeyagi: "Aunt, old and feeble, now has mild Alzheimer's, lives at the beach, still has the right to vote".

And...you don't see a problem with a clinically demented person being allowed to influence national policy?

TNel: How do you get a job without proper ID? How do you cash the check the job gives you without ID?

I got my first job in HS at 15 no ID needed...

I call bullshiat. I got my first job at 13. Legal, all above board...had to get permission from my school and a sign-off from both parents, IIRC. I had to produce my original Social Security card...while that in itself is not a photo ID, it *IS* sufficient in any state to get a photo ID issued to you. (Note that in Pennsylvania, getting this photo ID is explicitly free and doesn't even require a Social Security card, merely a number.) In other words, if you have what it legally takes to get a job -- even at 15 -- then you have what it takes to obtain a photo ID.

No more so than a person who watches Fox News every day, which I equate to like a bionic implanting of Schizophrenia.

Nutsac_Jim:Again.. how did you get your job in the first place, without supplying them an ID?

I had a job at a school district starting in 1998 that I never showed ID for. I lost my wallet when I first started and couldn't give them a copy of my license or SS card when they asked for it. When I explained they asked me to give it to them they said it could wait until I got the cards replaced. I forgot about it and so did they. It was only discovered when I gave my 2 weeks notice a few years later before starting a new job.

God forbid anyone actually have to prove who they are in order to vote.

Actually, I deeply resent the fact that I have to show ID virtually every time I cash a check, use my debit card, or apply for a job. ALL THAT SHOULD BE TOTALLY ANONYMOUS! Voting? Meh. Actually fairly unimportant.

2) We cannot prove that illegal voter fraud is occurring at a significant level.

3) Therefore, voter fraud is a problem and must be stopped.

/Republican logic.

Allow me to retort.

Point 1 is total bullshiate. Even the court ruled in previous months that this would not disenfranchise anyone. Even the people that the ACLU put on the stand as examples of people who would not be able to vote have ALL since found the 10 minutes required to pick up their free ID's. Seriously, every single one of them.

Point 2 is an important point. Until this law was passed there was zero method to determine how significant this problem is. The law was the fix for this issue as it provided a means of actually gathering the data for the very first time.

Point 3 is of course true.

Ignore listed.

Ah, the sign of a weak mind- you choose to ignore those who correct your mistakes. You're a creationist, aren't you?

The point stands though. Every single witness that testified in this trial has gotten their ID's. It was all over the news when that story broke last month. Most of us thought that it meant that this case was over and that the ID law would stand. It seems that in the end, the evidence that no disenfranchisement was occurring was not a strong enough argument to leave the law alone.

you have pee hands:mr lawson: Whoa...wait right there! Go back and look at what i said. I said POTENTIAL! I even bolded it to avoid this very type of attack.

Because in the absence of any sort of actual statistics regarding fraud it's just a big number for shock value which is senseless fearmongering.

And without strict voter ID laws, how do we know how much fraud is really out there? People could be voting UNLIMITED number of times, multiplied by the number of people in this country, plus all the dead and phony names used!

AAAAAAAARG!!!

TRUE FACT: There are only about 10,000 people that actually vote once in their own name! The rest of the millions of votes cast are duplicates and dead people, cast by an unknown number of people!

About half the people in my grandmother's building (an independent-living place for seniors in Pennsylvania,) didn't have an up-to-date photo ID last month. Most had driver's licenses that had expired after they quit driving, some older ladies never learned to drive at all (up until lately public transit was more than adequate, and a lot of the widows had husbands who drove, which was enough in their day,) and some, mainly from rural areas, had never had one. It just worked out that way.

The DMV is not on any of the bus lines and is nearly forty minutes away by car. They have a shuttle service that takes them to doctors' appointments, but with a five-story building of senior citizens, you pretty much have to book that two weeks in advance. The little town has exactly three taxicabs, one of which has been down because the driver just had a baby, and a lot of the residents don't have family locally to get them out there. Things did not look good, and after Republican politicians admitted it was going to help Romney, a number of my Grandma's friends found themselves contemplating a party change.

Luckily, my grandmother is one of those ladies who's good at organizing things and still fairly well-known in the community. She had my little brother drive her to our old high school and asked if any of the students would be interested in a community-service project. (They need 200 community-service hours to graduate and you need 50 hours of supervised driving with a permit to get a license in PA.) She persuaded the Civics teacher to offer class credit, convinced the principal to excuse participants from classes and set up a schedule whereby students could be excused for part of a school day to drive seniors to get their IDs. I live too far away now to come and help, so I sent Grandma a check to help with the gas money and my brother traded shifts at work so he could drive Grandma's friends as well -partly because he's a loyal grandson, but mainly because the ladies at the building made a huge amount of delicious food for the three-day affair and bachelors would gladly attend the opening of a can of tennis balls if Grandma and her posse were cooking.

Most of the juniors and senior students with cars and a few who borrowed their parents' participated, more for the time off school than anything else, and Grandma reported with great pride that all twenty-seven eighteen-year-olds in the senior class are now registered to vote. (It isn't a very big school.) And even though these senior citizens' polling place is within walking distance (at the fire department,) the students have offered to return in November to give rides again, which is wonderful for all the ones with arthritis and replacement-hips and whatnot who'd been trudging out the half-mile year after year. The program was so successful that Grandma and a few of the other seniors who still drive, but not at night, are working to get licensed and open a AAA-approved traffic school, so the next crop of high-school kids can learn safe driving and the seniors can all get rides to the movies and such in the evenings.

"It's a bad law, Spidey," she told me, "but even if they reverse it, as well they should, I'm a little glad they passed it. Would you believe some of those children have been coming back just to spend time with us?"

So yeah. The vagaries of party politics, assumed fraud and miscellaneous kerfuffle are no match for my Grandma.

Joe Blowme:Valid photo identification is required for the things that follow:adopt a petpurchase a homepurchase an automobilepurchase a gunobtain a bank accountobtain a credit cardobtain a passportwrite a checkmake a credit card purchaseapply for a loan to purchase anythingto prove your ageto get marriedto receive a marriage licenseto driveto buy a houseto close on a houseto get medical careto get on a planeto get insurance on anythingto get a jobto get a post office boxto get a hunting licenseto get a fishing licenseto get a business licenseto cash a paycheckrent an apartmentrent a hotel roomrent a carrent furniturerent tools and equipmentreceive welfarereceive social securityreceive food stampsbuy cigarettesbuy alcoholbuy a bus ticketbuy a cell phonebuy any antihistiminego in to a casinogo in to a bargo to collegehave your water turned onhave your electricity turned onhave your cable turned onhave your gas turned onobtain trash pick up servicepick up a package from the post officepick up a package from fed expick up a package from upspick up a prescription

So the people without id to vote never do any of these thigs either, right?

I have a petobtained a credit card onlinewrite checksmake purchases with a credit cardgotten medical caregotten insurancereceived a fishing licensebuy cigarettesbought bus ticketsbought a prepaid cell phonecashed a paycheckopened a bank accounthad water, electric and cable turned onwent into a barwent to collegeobtained trash pick upand pick up prescriptions

all without providing an ID that would be acceptable to vote with. I could probably do even more on that list, but got tired of your ridiculous list. I dont know which state you live in, but god damn you got some bureaucratic douches in your state government.

Eagles409:I love how liberals just assume that poor people and minorities are too stupid to get a free ID card.

Let me guess...this is part of the "Dem policies are racist because they think blacks are too stupid to know what's good for them" theory.

Which is then followed by reasons why Repub policies are actually better for blacks, but they don't know what's good for them and only vote for Dems because they're lazy and stupid and want free stuff.

Joe Blowme:Valid photo identification is required for the things that follow:adopt a petpurchase a homepurchase an automobilepurchase a gunobtain a bank accountobtain a credit cardobtain a passportwrite a checkmake a credit card purchaseapply for a loan to purchase anythingto prove your ageto get marriedto receive a marriage licenseto driveto buy a houseto close on a houseto get medical careto get on a planeto get insurance on anythingto get a jobto get a post office boxto get a hunting licenseto get a fishing licenseto get a business licenseto cash a paycheckrent an apartmentrent a hotel roomrent a carrent furniturerent tools and equipmentreceive welfarereceive social securityreceive food stampsbuy cigarettesbuy alcoholbuy a bus ticketbuy a cell phonebuy any antihistiminego in to a casinogo in to a bargo to collegehave your water turned onhave your electricity turned onhave your cable turned onhave your gas turned onobtain trash pick up servicepick up a package from the post officepick up a package from fed expick up a package from upspick up a prescription

So the people without id to vote never do any of these thigs either, right?

HotIgneous Intruder:Giltric: King Something: OhLuverly: Haven't been following this much so if someone would please clear this up, how is requiring a state issued ID to vote a barrier to poor folks voting?

The IDs required are not free; hence, it's a poll tax.

The free IDs have already been cited via articles and PENNDOTs own website....care to try again?

If something has to be paid for, it is not free. Taxpayers pay for the "free" voter IDs, therefore they are not free. Plus, obtaining the IDs requires citizens to take time, which is money, out of their lives.

We should retroactively enforce voter ID laws, and declare all elections prior to 2016 null and void.

I mean, if it's such a problem now, then it could have been a problem the entire time, all the way back to Washington (can't count John Hanson, he was president under the Articles, not the Constitution).

So since it's such a huge problem, let's reset everything back to 1788 and start over, just to be safe.

// On a more realistic note, I personally support voter ID laws, but I do have problems with the specific methods of implementation and the timing. The fact that Pennsylvania offers a free ID in conjunction with the law only resolves one of the issues.

I believe that any change that potentially impacts voting in a major federal election through disenfranchisement should only be allowed in the two years immediately following the last federal election; that includes implementation of voter ID laws and redistricting.

I can accept the argument at face value stating that requiring someone obtain a photo ID is to great of an encumbrance on the poor for a constitutionally guaranteed right. That this presents to great of a challenge for the poor to overcome.

However, that argument quickly falls down in comparison to how other constitutionally guaranteed rights are treated. The right to bear arms is supposedly guaranteed via Amendment 2. However, it is apparently not too great of an encumbrance to requires $431.50 in application and fingerprinting fees in New York.

So a few dollars investment for obtaining a photo ID is too great of a financial burden for one constitutionally protected right, while on the other hand it is perfectly reasonable to have people fork over hundreds of dollars for another?

"Constitutionally protected rights" should either be able to incur an encumbrance to exercise, or they shouldn't. But too many people think double standards are perfectly acceptable.

HotWingConspiracy:Leeds: Dusk-You-n-Me: what_now: Make the IDs free and make sure people have enough time to get one, and I'm fine with requiring one at the polls.

And if they forget their ID? Lose it? Have it stolen? Should they then lose their ability to vote?

Oh my goodness, what if they forget where to vote, or their car breaks down or they hit a deer on the way to the polling stations? We clearly need to send drivers out to pick up every resident in the state to make sure that they get to the polls on time!!!

// Democrats actually believe this crap

You didn't answer the question.

Should they then lose their ability to vote?

I take it the term "provisional ballot" is one you've not come across before. Please feel free to look it up.

Biff_Steel:Can't we just dip our fingers in ink and do away with these shenanigans?

I would prefer every voter poll have an open bar. If you vote, you get free drinks the rest of the day. No one is going to then take the time to go poll to poll and keep voting. Interferes with drinking time.

If multiple votes are the concern, why aren't Republicans pushing for the same kind of finger-dying they used in Iraq? Certainly some enterprising Republican legislator will find a way to make a personal fortune in dye sales by advancing such litigation.

These F*CKING judges. Pretty soon all the congress, preseidents, and judges will be all democrats. I am sure people will find some way to blame conservtives or all our problems. Yea, it is OK to ask people for IDs for alcohol and smokes, but not to vote! nooooooo! I can't wait to vote for Romney. When Obama screws things up even more, I can say, Hey, you voted him in, not me!

Marine1:moothemagiccow: Marine1: You know... let's take a look at all you need an ID for:

DrivingPurchasing a firearmCarrying a firearmCashing a checkOpening a bank accountUsing a debit or credit cardOpening a line of creditBoarding a commercial flightGoing to college (you may or may not need one for registration, but they will make you get one from them when you're on campus)Getting a passportBuying tobaccoBuying alcoholBuying medical marijuana (in states that allow it)Going over the border into Canada or MexicoTransferring large amounts of cash (thank the PATRIOT Act for that)Apply for a job at a government institution (they're going to want to make sure you're here legally)Being shown an apartment you're considering a lease on

With all of that in mind... just who the fark is going around without an ID? Forget whether or not these people could vote if that law had been passed... how much of a disadvantage are these folks at in their every day lives without one? How about we focus on that?

Photo ID. Handicapped, elderly and indigent. People you probably don't know or see, but are still citizens with a right to vote.

I already provided adequate ID when I registered to vote. I can vote with my registration card, which lacks a photo.

Then get them a freakin' ID so they can use it in the rest of their lives. Not having that little card more or less screws you over for opportunity in today's world.

I agree. But requiring such an ID to vote isn't going to help them, it's just going to stop them voting.

I don't know the cost required in rounding up the poor and photographing them, but I'm fine with it.The DMV in my state requires 3 forms of identification and your dick length and doesn't tell you about it until you take the time to visit the office and wait to speak with someone. I'm sure some efficiency can be made there.

DrivingPurchasing a firearmCarrying a firearmCashing a checkOpening a bank accountUsing a debit or credit cardOpening a line of creditBoarding a commercial flightGoing to college (you may or may not need one for registration, but they will make you get one from them when you're on campus)Getting a passportBuying tobaccoBuying alcoholBuying medical marijuana (in states that allow it)Going over the border into Canada or MexicoTransferring large amounts of cash (thank the PATRIOT Act for that)Apply for a job at a government institution (they're going to want to make sure you're here legally)Being shown an apartment you're considering a lease on

With all of that in mind... just who the fark is going around without an ID? Forget whether or not these people could vote if that law had been passed... how much of a disadvantage are these folks at in their every day lives without one? How about we focus on that?